Poetry cannot be hurried; it is no respecter of deadlines. Yet the quantity of poems published each year is daunting and asks for speed. Sometimes, I’ll pick up a volume by someone I’ve never heard of, open it at random and be rooted to the spot. At other times, a collection by a known poet will prove sealed as a dud mussel, and get cast aside. Inevitably, with only a dozen columns a year, there will be noteworthy collections that slip through the net. But poetry is not a competition; nothing is more personal, unpredictable and mysterious. For this reason, I am uneasy about the poetry prizes that make or consolidate names. Yet when one finds a poem that works, there is, however illusory the feeling might be, a certainty that has an acquisitive edge to it – like stumbling upon a pearl.

Clive James: ‘I’ve got a lot done since my death’

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The inimitable Les Murray’s Waiting for the Past secures its future with poems that effortlessly mix the conversational and the lyrical. He sends himself up as an “old book troglodyte” with no ambition for an upgrade from his ancient typewriter, but there is not a trace of the has-been about his wry, subtle, matchless voice, and the miles between Australia and the UK vanish as you read. But Murray is something of a known hero, while Andrew McMillan – a poet I have not come across until now – is unfamiliar but refuses to be ignored. Physical is a collection of homoerotic poems that are febrile, tender and written with an unwavering apprehension of beauty. The last line of the first poem is a fleeting manifesto: ‘writing something down keeps it alive’. With love poems – as many of these are – this idea becomes an imperative.

This year, Clive James – suffering from leukaemia – took up the idea of writing to stay alive in earnest. Sentenced to Life is that rare beast in poetry: a bestseller, a moving take on his, and our own, mortality. The godmother of a friend of mine, a woman over 100, wrote to congratulate James on the collection and he replied with a new poem written for and dedicated to her. Most writers write, in the first instance, for themselves. The least appealing poets also write to themselves: their poems might as well come with a “Keep Out” sign. But of this crime, James is innocent. His Japanese Maple, the most feted poem in the collection, will last.

Murray sends himself up as an “old book troglodyte”, but there is not a trace of the has-been about his matchless voice

Claudia Rankine’s Citizen occupied a category of its own this year. Her eloquent militancy about racism is arresting; reading sometimes feels like eavesdropping on America. Her collection is a remarkable achievement, not least because poems that set out to be polemical seldom work. Sean Borodale’s Human Work also gave me satisfaction this year and an appetite to read on. There is charm in his dignifying of the domestic, in his sensuous writing about food. His ingredients rival Chardin’s in paint, his still lifes are never deadly. He is a marvellous poet, a man who knows his artichokes. And Sarah Howe’s Loop of Jade – a volume that slipped through my net – has oriental poise, reach and artistic precision. A poet to watch in 2016.Poetry in translation tends, for obvious reasons, to get overlooked, but Carole Satyamurti (a fine poet in her own right) has produced an outstanding new translation of Mahabarata – ancient epic of duty, sex, obedience and violence within the Bharata dynasty. This is a colossal undertaking, written with unfaltering grace in which Satyamurti offers Indian wisdom from 2,000 years ago in a way that still reaches us in 2015.

Save at least 30% Browse all the critics’ choices at bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. From now until Christmas, 20p from each title you order will go to the Guardian and Observer charity appeal 2015.